Let's talk character design.
It's something I've spent some time reading up on and enjoying, but for the most part I'd say it's something of a minor weakness. Acting through a design is an important way to communicate information about a character.
I needed to convey a sense of contrast between my characters, and yet tie them together visually in the same world.
Here is some early concept work :
Not my best work, and frankly the characters are posed very similarly.
Oh, and in case you want to meet the kid behind the drawing:
Mom loved taking pictures with the sun behind her. Still does. Now you know why I have no good family photos.
Here's another set of early ink sketches. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my pictures of the finished sketches and designs - I'll take some sometime soon, but essentially I decided on a design for the child that was three and half heads tall and emphasized childishness, messiness, curiosity and slight suspicion the character holds for the cat trespasser.
The cat's final design is largely unchanged from the first images I drew. While I did make many drawing trying to settle on a style, I eventually settled on a design that was more mysterious and aloof than the more naturally expressive child.
Here's a selection of early, rejected sculpts. (Shudder).
The final sculpt. A lot of time was spent trying to cast this puppy. In the end, I resculpted it out of Milliput and Fimo.
The Finished Puppets. In order to tie their designs together, I used paper in their construction - for hair and fur, accordingly. Many elements in the world are also of paper.
Examples of artists I find good inspirations for character design
The breakout star of ParaNorman, I adore her textures and devilmaycare pencil work. Very freeing.
I learned quite a bit from Butler by looking at the shapes she chooses in constructing her cat-run world in her comic Lackadaisy.
Her tutorials are very simple and wellput.
The author of The Illusion of Life, I found his chapter on Penny and Rufus, the cat, from the Rescuers, to be very helpful in characterizing my own cat and girl. He really understood kids in a way I hadn't thought about, especially the casual way they interact in the world and their careless and easy relationship to animals.
Also http://characterdesign.blogspot.co.uk/
is a useful corner of the internet.